Good morning, world

 I shaked off the cats, picked the assorted mess they caused during their night runs and now I'm sitting with my coffee and sorta watching the world go by. The usual business, so much to do, where to start. 

Which lead me to the thought of how this blog started. I got a scholarship to Florence, something sponsored by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and it was just in time because about half a year before, I was hanging out with this guy who raped me and stalked me and accidentally, two blocks from my place, a stalker beat her colleague with a stick after he waited in some shrubbery in front of her house. So, moving across half of Europe, changing addresses and phone numbers and everything was pretty good thing. Still, I sometimes looked over my shoulder whether someone wasn't following me. Unpleasant times.

Many years after, we had one of those heated debates with my mother, she asserted that stalkers don't really deserve to be kicked in their shins and fed to lions because what's the harm. I explained how exactly I felt harmed. My mother said Oh, poor boy, he must have been so much in love to be this persistent and you were mean to him, and poor guys these days, everything is stalking and harassment and we'll soon be like those poor people in 'Murica where holding the door for the lady will mean immediate arrest or something.
It went to and fro for a while and at the end, I just gave up reasonable debate and yelled You are my goddamn mother, you should be on my side!!!!1!!!1!
Which won me the argument. I, a person who doesn't understand her own emotions, won an argument by appeal on emotions. I wish I had actual manipulating skills, it would make life easier.

It's a gloomy winter day, I'd love to go to Italy in spring to do a bit of research for my thesis and to hang around. I don't mind sitting at home, not meeting people and doing my stuff, actually, I love it, but due to plague, libraries are closed and I feel that I'm losing the teensy bits of social skills I had so getting outta here is getting scarier. At least I've saved a bundle in dry cleaning.

Anyway, back to virology lectures and knitting.

Anniversary

A year ago, I got my kidney removed. It was mostly tumour, anyway.

It was a story full of randomness. In winter, my depression worsened so the doc added new meds, I had some cold from hell, got a live vaccine and had a few other reasons to feel shitty. I had vertigo even when lying down, once, I had a syncope and when I became conscious again, I just was not able to get up from the floor, not sure if it was a lack of coordination or general weakness, this sort of stuff. I stopped taking the new psych meds and the vertigo started improving but I was quite a bit off and as I went to parents', I dropped by at my GP. She did the poking and prodding, decided that by all counts, I'm healthy, I don't look healthy at all, though, and I should get an ultrasound of my abdomen because I feel sickish and it could be the appendix. Well, I know where my stomach is but I didn't object. Some seven hours and five doctors' offices later, I ended up in the university hospital where a friendly urologist showed me a nice big potato on the ultrasound. I asked where my kidney is, then, and he explained that it was the thin line around that potato. Oopsie.

For my birthday, I got a CT which showed sliced potato. Kidney potato was hacked away with the rest of the kidney and the tubing and I ended up with a sexy scar.

And, I'm entitled to all the tasteless cancer jokes for the rest of my life.

Hahnenkamm

Since my parents got cable some 15 or 20 years ago, they started watching Eurosport. Apparently, arguing about tennis and football has become almost the only reasonable communication between them but I stopped caring about their somewhat dysfunctional relationship years ago. But, that's besides the point although family matters are a continuous source of unbelievable stories.
I don't really like winter. It's best experienced someplace like Innsbruck, from a nice warm café of the Central-European style, watching the snowy peaks from a safe distance while slurping coffee and waiting for spring. But, there are winter sports. Those performed by others, obviously. (Yes, I love snowboarding. Yes, I'm pretty bad. Nope, haven't been anywhere for a few years because I lived in fucking mountains and I hated 9 of every 10 seconds there, the 10 % was botanizing and I may be exaggerating, even.)

The downhill in Kitzbühel has over the years become one of the most important family events, and probably the most funny one because during Christmas, we tend to argue a lot over something like mayonnaise or who looked funny at whom, and during the summer reunion, there are a few annoying relatives I can live without. Watching downhill skiing is a shared activity enjoyed without any drama.
For those who do not know or care, the Streif is said to be one of the most difficult pistes. And that's the point. We sit, watch and scream things like Now he is dead! No, he's dead now! Nope, he's still moving but they'll need to cut him out from the safety netting! @#$%^!!! 149 kph on this!!! plus quite some less articulate things.
Then the winners and survivors are happy and the watchers have had an adrenaline rush that lasts for quite a few days. And now back to the scheduled boring stuff. Not the Australian Open, just some clerical stuff.

New Year

No resolutions, I don't bother. I only have plans.

I still somewhat miss the joy that writing used to bring. It all comes out somewhat lifeless although I keep trying. Or, maybe, my rants were never any good but I just didn't notice and none of the, erm, two? regular readers bothered to say anything.

One of the plans is to deal with the herbary backlog dating to 2013. Which will be fun because the 2013 loot is mostly from the Mediterranean and I'm not exactly an expert on the area. I didn't keep very consistent notes on that trip either. I started today and the bulk of the work done was shifting the stuff in the compost bag. Maybe it could be a method. And maybe I could use it for other stuff. Also, here, have some indoor gardening.

Time capsule

I have a flat in Prague which has been neglected for a few years. I would come over infrequently, for a short time, and there was always something more interesting to do than sorting out old boxes.
Yesterday, I bought a new vacuum cleaner, the old one had been a pain in the arse for years, and started cleaning and decluttering. So far, have found:
high school diploma that I had missed for years. Not that I would need it, I got a duplicate years ago when I misplaced the original and that duplicate, misplaced a few times in between, now lives in the tube with my university diploma but it's good to have both of them in a known spot.
a silk blouse
and a Puma hoodie with a puma applique I got in Italy, it's one of the disappearing and appearing things as well
a flyer from a small Regensburg gallery where I got some nice bowls many years ago and of which only one wasn't stolen by some goddamn tenants; I hope the lady who made them is still alive and willing to make more of the same

There's always something cathartic about decluttering. I've always liked this place. I had good time here - I was at the uni, I liked studying, I had excellent social life which gets complicated with the damn introverts and yes, some people would think it no social life worth mentioning but hey, I went to the opera, there was always someone to feed the cat when I was gone for more than Tähti the Meezer would consider polite, I had mild academic ambitions. Then depression struck and guess what. It was all before this blog - one day, I'll find out how to merge it with the old one which I abandoned because an asshole started stalking me - and it wouldn't seem that far away weren't it for the last few years of job from hell, depression, more depression, a textbook example of burnout and the related fun. I keep ranting about my memory problems but they're too pervasive - I want my jasper cat back but I can't remember where it is, all I can remember is that one time, I lived between three places and I always remembered what is where.
I'd better go and get some groceries, it hasn't been done for a while. Had rice, lentils and chopped tomatoes for dinner (see that there's no mention of salt) so today I'm out of tomatoes and lentils and I'm staying for two more days. Oh, the good old days of eating leftovers of leftovers because all food money was spent on books. It feels almost as if I were young again.

Sometimes I feel like I'm 80

Today's breakfast:

Magnesium citrate and some other magnesium preparation, for a total of around 1 g of Mg, as per prescription.
Lansoprazol to inhibit the production of gastric juices and itopride to make the stuff pass further down faster. Yay GERD.
Fluoxetine, a generic brother of the well-known Prozac for depression.
Clonazepam for anxiety.

Don't worry, there won't be any rant about how mainstream medicine stuffs me with pills and I don't feel great anyway. I actually find this somewhat funny for no reasonable reason.

The neurologist said that when one is stressed, the body needs much more magnesium and that I'm pretty deficient. The question was What to do with the goddamn tinnitus, for that matter. Tinnitus is thriving but my wonky arm is less wonky, and it is a nerve thing, not actually pain but an annoying feeling, somewhere between itch and pain, not very pronounced but almost constant, from the shoulder to the outer of my hand. Apparently, depression makes one fall apart physically as well.

All the same

I must've mentioned many a time that I like when things are unremarkable. It means that there's no impeding disaster and being the boss, I am the one who solves problems. I hate dealing with problems caused by other people's stupidity and since my underlings are not the sharpest knives in the drawer, most of the problems are caused by negligence, lack of literacy (seriously, I can't believe that some of the folks passed the basic school) and several other sorts of idiocy not described by science yet.

My mother is having a tough time as well but apparently she's not losing good humour. She has a degree in theory of education or something along those lines and the stuff going on around here reminds her of a daycare for slightly retarded children. She thus promised to find me some courses in special education and social pathology to help me understand the mentality. I stopped planning to run away, not that I wouldn't want to but because I don't have enough mental capacity to plan something so complicated but from what I hear from other people, it's all the same all over the place with the exception of academia where one would need courses not in special education but rather cat herding and a double dose of social pathology.
Mom also wants me to make notes so that she could coauthor a book based on my experience. Which means that first, I'd need to move away, far, far away because the persons involved would recognize themselves and the persons not involved would recognize themselves too. If I get my caustic sense of humour back, though.

Seen my shrink and got new antidepressants. So far, I got a steaming helping of side effects so I sleep badly - not that I'd slept too well but there's always some space for worsening, right? - and I stopped eating almost entirely. Due to somewhat busy week, I've been nomming my dear benzos to prevent my head from exploding and I can't really judge my mental status. Or, I can, it's shitty but I haven't noticed any new variations of that shitty.

I'd add a gratuitous cat picture or something but my camera died and I can't afford a new one. Go and pet your own kitty.

News roundup

Grandma was diagnosed with breast cancer in spring. She's getting second round of pre-op chemo and she's allergic to it so every dose incluses anaphylactic shock.
Mom is doing major part of the care. Her siblings need to go holidaying and stuff and accompanying a rather boring old lady to the oncology ward is teh nuisance, and my uncle is retired so he has no time to hang around anyway, he needs to do all that relaxing.
Dad has his own health issues with bad legs - result of various accidents, injuries and neuropathy. It's understandable that it makes him cranky but he's grown intolerably annoying as of lately.
Poor mom is in the middle of this and I can't help her due to lousy job elsewhere and my own issues.
Speaking of my depression, it calmed down. I don't break stuff and cry, I'm rather resigned. I do change my sheets and clothes and have showers from time to time and I pretend to be functioning but it doesn't work.

And then there's the real Rio at work. The usual stuff is usual - imagine a long rant about how I hate dealing with people - and since we've been pretty full in the last two weeks, it's a sort of badly managed chaos. The highlights of the weeks were thieving staff and a nice talk to nice police officers and less nice talk to staff in question who didn't understand the wink, wink, hint, hint of Maybe the missing cash is just misplaced at first because they're morons but they came to the conclusion on their own or my dear deputy did more yelling than diplomacy.
Then there was a mutineering cook who made me yell at him in front of guests and staff - guests enjoyed the amateur theatre and staff is spreading the schadenfreude.
Next day, the other cook called in sick but then something happened and she came to work - I suspect that the injury of pride caused by the other cook (mentioned above, generally known as Fat Asshole, generally disliked) taking over the shifts would be more serious than some upper respiratory problems.
And then there was the angry guy with steel pipe.
I would like to start drinking. I have booze, I have reasons but I just don't feel like it. Horrible.

Another day in the woods

I called my psych doc last week, asking when the hell will I go to the hospital. He said that he doesn't know, that he just sent the paperwork and now it depends when they have a free spot

I feel like calling the psych ward directly. Not that I'd scream Take me NAO but... I have this week to sort out my papers and stuff and then... I don't care. I know that it will cause problems and I would be worried but I don't care. I've said that the job is killing me. Powers that be said that, well, underlings are bullying me and it's wrong. I can't do anything about it, my people skills are zero - which is why this happened, first of all, because I wrongly assumed that people are generally playing fair.

And, no, if I talk about things that could/should be done to make the hotel work better, it doesn't necessarily mean that I want to see and organize it in person. I'm able to analyze shit this way without any implications and since I play fair, I'm still working here so I'm doing my feeble best.

Yet, I'm still worried that I won't be able to hold back and I'll throw objects or cry all the time. It's not practical for many reasons and, well, mom is here. She's unhappy that I'm apparently distressed but she refuses to believe how deep is the problem. In fact, both parental units think I'm fine, just a bit distressed, and that I should keep calm. Yesterday mom saw my bottle of clonazepam and asked what for and continued ranting in ominous tone that we both know what's this all about. I said To make me sleep, to which she replied Ah, so there's where your moodines comes from. I shrugged and concentrated on poking my kefir grains around, there is no point to explaining psych meds to someone who doesn't believe in them and in psychiatry in whole. The blog, for some reason, works in Pacific Daylight Time, but I live in GMT + 1, blog says it's 23:33 but it's 07:33 in here and I should go to bed. Add 8 hours to see that my last blog post was written around 3 am, and that was because I was so agitated that I couldn't sleep. That's where clonazepam and zolpidem come to help, and if I have 10 hours, then there's one nice old-school allergy med that actually makes me sleep. I'm not just a bit distressed and I can't overcome it by breathing deeply and concentrate on joys of life.

I should get up and do something, which, unfortunately, doesn't involve jumping on the first bus going anywhere.

Let the obnoxious drunks choke on their preferred booze.

I had five days sort of off. It included half a day shopping and half a day of inventorizing... and four days of mostly crying. On the 27th, I got back to work, also known as hellhole, prison, the damn hotel and other loving monikers, and rode on the adrenaline wave. The supplier fucked up my order of tableware that I ordered in advance in case there was an unplanned delay. Well, my fault, I should have planned not only an unplanned delay but also an unplanned unplanned delay. I ordered some sparkling wine and got ten crates of demi sec instead of brut so I needed to send someone to buy said brut because delivery not worky during the weekend. The wine guy promised some extra bottles for the hassle, which were snatched by said someone; I at least guess Mom will leave some for me. When they forgot to add some meat to yet another delivery, I called my assigned representative and told him that it's not my problem whether he beats or blackmails the people who prepare the stuff but could he please make sure that I get my stuff on time next time, thankyouverymuch. He started apologing profusely that these times around Giftmas are busy and messy, to which I gently replied that I'm sure he's sorry but I have other things to do so he can explain it later on. To cut the other story shorter, we have more guests than beds, as BossDad kept promising rooms left and right without bothering to tell the reception or me or someone who would actually make sure there're beds available. I sleep on a sofa, my little cousin and his two dogs sleep on the floor in my room, Boss's buddy got moved twice - at least he's a good sport - and there's a bunch of people who weren't promised actual beds but floor space for their sleeping bags. The Chef was fired two weeks ago, a replacement is here since the 27th and I already told him in no uncertain terms that while I appreciate his insight and experience regarding various stuff, I don't want to hear it now while I'm dealing with the backlog of paperwork left by Exchef, unexpected guests, beer cooling thingy breaking down, lack of champagne and a host of things my brain mercifully deleted meantime. At least Replacement Guy got it very soon and tries not to bother me. Today afternoon, I was already sick in several ways so I went to the wine cellar to cry and cool down, which usually takes about five minutes. At which point BossDad arrived, bringing turkeys and rum and my mom wanted something of extreme urgence such as a pencil or breath mints. When I have a full-blown meltdown, the worst thing to do is to ask What happened to you, Did something happen, Why are you crying when everything is going fine? etc. A while later, when I was trying to calm down by sorting out some papers, mom remarked: I think you should sort out the paperwork to hand it over. When you go like this when things go fine.... this job is not for you. Been telling them all the time. I know I can handle crises and manage chaos. I just can't stand too many people for too long, I can't stand this place in the woods, I can't stand winter here... I'm an organizer, not a person who would smile at the goddamn clients. I actually hate clients; I mean, they're my source of income and I don't hate every person each for some specific reason. It's just people gone over my critical mass, sorry folks, you're more than four-ish for longer than an afternoon. And now, they're drunk, loud and obnoxious. Regarding those who think that getting drunk is great fun, I have quite some disdain for each one in person. Now I'm going to bed onto the sofa. Stay tuned for more whiny rants next year or some other day.

There's something wrong with the world

I'm having rather a bad time. It's the upcoming winter, busy season at work or just general meanness of the Universe but everything I do just goes wrong.

The other day, I fell out of a tram and splatted in the middle of the road. I wasn't even drunk.

I'm late with work, which is normal because I'm not the best person for the job, if I put it mildly. Actually it seems that I'm even more behind than usual. I'm certain there's a disaster in the making, if things seem to go moreless smoothly, there's always something to happen. I guess it's not necessary to list every little failure, nobody cares about sending the wrong papers to the wrong person and stuff like that.

I can't bring myself to be interested. Not that I was ever particularly enthused about working in a hotel but I had my little pleasures - organising stuff and the like and now I don't care. It needs to be done, it gets done. Slower than usual and probably worse than the usual bad.

Well, I'm just a pathetic loser. Unable to make my mind whether I want to join the party at work or not, or to find what I actually want from life apart from ten hours of sleep.

Getting out of the hellhole

My parents hardly say anything about my work beyond Do not think that other jobs are just okay all the time or Work harder. I'm not actually complaining too much in general (1) and even less to them. Yet, the other day, mom forwarded me a notice that Technical University of Civilized Town that there's an opening for a part-time teaching gig at the Faculty of Art and Architecture and prompted me to apply and not to tell dad. I shared the idea with my friends who voted unanimously for Go and try it so I found my diploma (not a difficult job, the big tube is hard to lose), got a credential and intended to write a CV. At which point I got stuck. A friend arrived to the hotel for two days. We landed at the bar, being served by one of the worse gossips, talked intellectual shit ranging from differences between Finnish and Estonian, Latin poetry and various geekeries. The waitress probably regretted not having elephant ears – I know she spreads gossip about me, or, well, downright lies, and now she'd have a lot of fodder if she only understood the difficult words or, well, the general point, such as when I was explaining the word 'vittu' and its derivatives and their use as curses in Finnish. Or Florentine epigrams (those guys at least spread the gossip in written and in verse, pasted to the public well). Or... whatever. Just the normal talk. The next day, the task was to get to the post office to mail the papers. Jean-Pierre graciously helped me to write the CV, or, to be exact, wrote it after he asked me about what I had done and such. My self-confidence keeps saying things like Oh, it's no biggie, it was just a grant from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, anyone can get that. I basically felt as if I were polishing a piece of shit but J.-P. is an experienced academic nomad so I left it up to him. We walked through the woods – the other option was to wait for two hours until they open and then go to the local post office, hoping that they are open in the afternoon as well. Letter was posted and now I'm waiting. Actually, I do hold hopes. An opening is not advertised a month before the start of the academic year, which means that someone died or got pregnant with triplets without informing the department in reasonable advance and they need someone, anyone, with a certain degree of literacy, who would take said job NAO. Or, with about the same likelihood, the spot is kept for a friend of a friend and it was announced publicly because it's required by the law and I won't get a decent answer even. Whatevs. Now I'm waiting. ______________________________________________ (1) Should anyone want to point out that whenever I talk about work, it's all curses and screams with a recurrent theme of I want to get out of that hellhole!!!!11!1!elebenty!!!, as it is not too much, given the general crap I'm dealing with.

Secret life of my unconscious

The other day, mom was trying to wake me up so that I would be at work only with a reasonable delay. It needed a bit of shouting because my mind was in a crowded pub full of Italian revolutionaries who were shouting their heads off. I was just at a point of meeting Garibaldi when some door banging did it.

I wonder what would papa Freud say.

Sometimes, the dreams are somehow related to reality, which the today's one was not. At all. It could be a proper psychological short story if I took the pain to elaborate, in which I was a surfer growing up in Malibu.

Here I need to intercept, dear reader. I'm a lousy swimmer and I'm afraid of large bodies of water. Surfing would be cool and maybe, if I actually lived somewhere on a beach with surf, I may try it, but being the real me, I say Eeeeep, no. Also, I know about Malibu only from watching Three and half men.

So, well, yeah, house on a beach, surfing, getting lots of tan, sun-bleached hair...

I can sort of imagine myself in a wetsuit but I don't want to. Dear reader, follow my path.

.... and then I was transplanted to somewhere in Europe with four distinct seasons, snow in winter and all that what they don't have in Cali, and I had problems connecting with the natives. And then went snowboarding, worried that there's no way I would be able to do it, decided that it's like surfing, just on different form of water, after all, the guy who invented snowboards was inspired by surfboards, and it went all okay. Then I woke up into a July day with a headache.

Brain, why?